


I Wanna Call You Mine

by FeliciaSueLynn



Category: Lunar Chronicles - Marissa Meyer
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Coffee Shops, F/M, cresswell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-13
Updated: 2016-04-13
Packaged: 2018-06-02 02:41:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6547330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeliciaSueLynn/pseuds/FeliciaSueLynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A weirdly angsty Cresswell coffee shop AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Wanna Call You Mine

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my first non-kpop fic in a very long time. Also, I'm sorry for how bad this probably is. I'm SO rusty at writing. I definitely need to get back to writing on the reg. I hope you enjoy it none-the-less. This is less cute and more angsty than I originally thought it would be. I might write another coffee shop AU for Cresswell that has more fluff. 
> 
> Title taken from the song Over and Over by Smallpools

Cress goes to the same cafe everyday. As a post-graduate, living alone in a new city working from home, she figures she needs to force some sort of social interaction. Even if it is just ordering the same small Earl Grey tea from a barista, at least she’s talking to someone once a day. Twice if a friend from college calls or if her mother suddenly decides she needs to know how Cress is. 

She’s happy with her life. She makes good money freelancing coding and website design. Sometimes she feels a little trapped. Trapped by her shyness and insecurities. But most times she’s content.

That’s exactly what she thinks as she sits down at the same small table she has sat at for weeks at the same small cafe to design a website for a small company trying to sell gifts baskets representative of certain places around the world. She likes the idea but doesn’t think it will go very far. 

She picks up her cup and frowns at it. Of course it’s empty, she thinks. She shakes it sadly setting it back down and putting her hands back to her keyboard. She just needs to get through these next few lines of code and the scrolling banner her client had requested will be done. She rubs her hands down her face trying to wipe the tired from it. She shouldn’t have stayed up so light watching the live recording of Phantom of the Opera at Royal Albert Hall.

“Here, it’s on the house,” someone says setting a cup down beside her old one and making Cress jump slightly. She looks up to see a charming smile framed by nice dimples and even nicer blue eyes topped by brown hair. The barista is looking at her like she’s the most precious person to him in the world. She wipes the thought from her mind and looks back at her monitor.

“Thank you,” she replies, her voice almost a whisper. 

“My pleasure,” he responds. Cress can hear the smile in his voice. He goes back to work and Cress tries not to think about him as she sips her tea. 

~~~~~~

Cress waits in line patiently looking around the coffee shop in an effort to avoid staring at the barista from yesterday. She wonders how she never noticed him before but his charm is a gift he graces every person with be it male or female, young or old. Suddenly she doesn’t feel so special. She tries not to let it get to her but she had fantasies in her head since yesterday about him noticing her and wanting to get her attention. She tries to drop the fantasy but her heart doesn’t let her.

~~~~~~

Maybe Cress is special she thinks as the barista sets another tea down beside her empty one the next day. She looks at him to thank him but he’s smiling and backing away to attend to the long line of customers who are waiting to order. She gives him a small smile and sips appreciatively at the drink. 

She had been thinking about ordering mediums from now on but maybe not.

~~~~~~

The cafe is unusually empty when she arrives the next day. There’s only one person in there which is unusual for a Monday morning.. It’s an old man reading a newspaper and taking long slurps of black coffee. It gives the place a completely different vibe. She’s sad when she walks up to the counter and sees a different barista instead. She makes a mental note to check what days he’s there so she’s not suddenly disappointed again.

She orders and takes a seat but waits to open her laptop and begin her work for the day. She wants to take in the unusual atmosphere. She sits quietly staring out the window watching people go about their day. 

“Hello.”

Cress jumps and almost spills tea down her front but manages to save it just time. She looks up to see the barista sitting across from her, the same charming smile gracing his lips. He’s out of uniform, missing the black clothes under a white apron. She thought he looked good in the uniform but the casual button up short sleeve shirt looks even better on him. 

“Um, hello,” she replies with a shy smile. She’s unused to talking to strangers.

“I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced. I’m Carswell Thorne, but everyone just calls me Thorne,” he says and holds out his hand to shake hers.

“I’m Cress.”

She takes his hand but he switches his grip suddenly and brings the back of her hand to his lips. A small smirk flits across his face before he leans down slightly and kisses it. Cress can feel the blush spreading from her chest up to her neck and across her cheeks. 

“It’s nice to meet you,” he says. Cress nods but doesn’t reply. She tries not to openly stare at him but it’s hard when he’s sitting directly across from her and studying her so openly. She stares vacantly out the window.

“So, Cress, what do you do here everyday?”

Cress’s eyes snap to him. Is he playing a joke on me, she wonders, or is he being serious?

“Why,” she says her voice a little harsh not realizing she asked out loud until it’s too late. “I mean-”

“I was just curious,” he replies holding up his hands, “if you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine.”

“Sorry,” her voice is soft trying to make up for earlier, “I’m a freelance programmer. I come here to program.”

Thorne nods, “Why come here to do what you can do from home?”

Cress shrugs. She’s not about to tell a complete stranger about how lonely her house feels. She tears her eyes from him again to stare out the window.

“I like the atmosphere of the cafe. Plus it makes it feel like I go to a job everyday even if I don’t.”

“If you wanted it to feel like you had a job to go to why not just get a job?”

Cress doesn’t answer. There are so many reasons. None of which she feels up to explaining at this moment. She settles for a small shrug as the sky outside finally opens up and starts to downpour on the people outside. It’s been threatening to do so all day. Cress thinks she can feel the atmosphere release from around her as those first few drops splatter on the ground.

He throws a lazy smile at her that she catches out of the corner of her eye, “I’ll get out of your hair. I just wanted to say hi anyway.”

~~~~~~

Cress doesn’t show up on Tuesday. It feels weird not to go but she promised her father she’d meet him for lunch and going to the cafe seems like a waste since it’s on the opposite side of town. When she shows up on Wednesday, Thorne’s face is a mix of anxiousness and relief. She can’t quite understand why. 

“You’re here,” he says when she gets to the front of the line holding out his hand for her debit card. He’s smiling but it’s too tight, too wide.

“Why wouldn’t I be here,” she asks and hands it to him a small smile on her lips. The fact that he knows what she wants still fills her with a small amount of joy. 

“You weren’t here yesterday. I thought I scared you off,” the smile gone with the worry lines etched back in around his lips and across his brow. 

“I had to do something,” she replies quietly, “sorry to worry you.”

“Don’t apologize. You’re alright, right?”

Cress nods and takes the cup he hands her to sit at her table. There’s no one else waiting for a drink at the moment to Thorne grabs a damp wash cloth and pretends to wipe down the table next to Cress to continue talking.

“Are you sure? Since you’ve been coming here, you’ve almost never missed a day. The days you did miss you came back with a cold.”

Cress looks at him. How long has he noticed her? Why hadn’t she noticed him sooner?

“I just had to meet with my father for lunch. It was nothing.”

“Okay.”

Cress looks at Thorne. He’s turned his full attention to the table he’s vigorously wiping down. She wants to say something, she can feel it building in her chest but she can’t bring her mouth to form the words.

“Hey, Cress?”

Cress tries to respond but her caught words choke her up and it comes out as a squeak. She clears her throat, “yea?”

“Would you like to go to dinner with me?”

Cress looks directly at his face, startled. He looked as nervous as she felt. She’s glad she didn’t have to ask first like she had been trying to do. She bites her lips and nods.

“Really?”

“Yea, I was going to ask the same thing,” she replies looking to the side and twisting her hair around her wrist. A nervous happen she can’t seem to rid herself of. 

“Great!”

The sudden uplift in Thorne’s tone has her turning to look at him again. His usual, self-confident smile is back. His eyes are bright and his mouth his moving 100 miles an hour but she can’t seem to hear any of it. She can’t believe that saying yes has made him so happy. She can feel herself smiling almost as brightly as him. The first real big smile she’s had in such a long time.

Maybe she isn’t so content in her lonely life, but she could be content and not lonely soon.


End file.
